“The Biden administration entered the White House with an eye toward relieving the strain of student loan debt, particularly amid the added financial burden of the coronavirus pandemic.
On day one in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order extending a pause student federal loan payments enacted by the previous administration as part of COVID relief. Progressive activists and lawmakers have urged the president to go further and cancel student loan debt, but he has said firmly that he does not believe he has the authority to do so by executive order.
That changed Thursday, when White House chief of staff Ron Klain said that Biden asked his education secretary to explore the president’s authority to cancel student loan debt, a sign he is open to moving left on the issue.
Critics of student loan debt forgiveness, including conservatives and some liberals, argue that it would unfairly benefit higher-income earners with college educations, and that individuals who took out loans have a responsibility to pay them back, regardless of circumstance.
Biden has thus far been hesitant to bypass Congress for such actions as canceling student loan debt. But since the days of his campaign, he has acknowledged a need for reform for those with ‘debilitating’ student debt.
‘I understand the impact of debt,’ he said at a CNN town hall in February.
Biden said student loans should have 0% interest – a move he enacted alongside the repayment freeze through September – as well as expanded student loan forgiveness for public-sector workers. He’s also canceled debt for students who were defrauded by for-profit schools.
He’s hesitant to cancel loan debt for those who went to top-tier schools, though. The federal government should not forgive debt for students who went to elite schools like ‘Harvard and Yale and Penn,’ Biden said.
Trump and Biden froze federal student loans: Should borrowers pay or pause before they thaw?
On Thursday, Klain said Biden asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to craft a memo on the president’s executive authority to cancel student loan debt. Still, the president hasn’t made any decision on what he will do.
‘He’ll look at that legal authority, he’ll look at the policy issues around that and he’ll make a decision,’ Klain said in an interview with Politico Playbook.
Enacting student loan forgiveness through Congress might be difficult in an evenly split Senate.” Read more at USA Today
“More than three million people in the U.S. are now receiving Covid vaccines each day.” Read more at New York Times
“Johnson & Johnson will take full control of the production of its coronavirus vaccine at a troubled plant in Baltimore where millions of doses worth of drugs were contaminated, the company said late Saturday.
Production at the plant of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca will be relocated with help from the Biden administration following the mix-up, according to AstraZeneca and a seniorfederal health official.
The developments followed the news that a batch amounting to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was spoiled at the plant after being contaminated with ingredients for AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
The error was caught and no contaminated drugs made it out of the plant, according to the companies involved.
The plant is operated by Emergent BioSolutions, a major government contractor. The senior health official said the administration had determined that only one vaccine should be made at the facility.” Read more at Washington Post
“Jordanian authorities on Saturday arrested as many as 20 people and sought to restrain the movement of a former crown prince amid what officials called a threat to the ‘security and stability’ of a country long regarded as a vital U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Prince Hamzeh bin Hussein, the eldest son of the late King Hussein and his American-born fourth wife, Queen Noor, was told to remain at his Amman palace amid an investigation into an alleged plot to unseat his older half brother, King Abdullah II, according to a senior Middle Eastern intelligence official briefed on the events.
The move followed the discovery of what officials described as a complex and far-reaching plot that included at least one other Jordanian royal as well as tribal leaders and members of the country’s political and security establishment. One official cited unspecified evidence of ‘foreign’ backing for the plan.” Read more at Washington Post
We’re still learning more about the driver who rammed his car into two Capitol Police officers on Friday, leaving one dead and the other injured. He was fatally shot after emerging from the vehicle with a knife.
Noah Green had recently told friends that he had left his job and had ‘afflictions.’ On his Facebook page, he described himself as a supporter of the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and said he had been struggling through the last few months of the pandemic. He had no history of violence.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the officer who was killed, William Evans, an 18-year veteran, would be remembered as a ‘martyr for our democracy.’
The shocking attack will complicate the security review of the Capitol begun after the Jan. 6 riot and will deepen debates over how Congress should balance security and public access.” Read more at New York Times
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Supporters of Donald Trump who thought they were sending a single donation were charged over and over by his campaign operation.
A Times investigation found that the charges were part of an intentional scheme to boost revenue to Mr. Trump’s struggling presidential campaign. Recurring online donations were set up by default, and a fine-print disclaimer and opt-out language became increasingly hard to find.
Demands for refunds spiked, and complaints to banks and credit card companies soared. The magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics: All told, the Trump campaign and the Republican Party raised $1.2 billion with WinRed, a for-profit donation processing service, and refunded roughly 10 percent of it.
In effect, the overcharges were an interest-free loan — eventually paid off with some of the tens of millions of dollars Mr. Trump raised after the election under the guise of pursuing his unfounded claims of election fraud.” Read more at New York Times
John Amis/Associated Press
Major League Baseball became the latest American sports league to flex its activist muscles.
On Friday, Rob Manfred, the M.L.B. commissioner, pulled the 2021 All-Star Game out of suburban Atlanta in a rebuke over a new Georgia voting law that critics say will disenfranchise Black voters. Gov. Brian Kemp said the league had ‘caved to fear’ as he tried to rally Republicans around the new voting limits.
Relocating the game — a move that players did not universally support — was a watershed moment for risk-averse baseball, and it showed once again that sports isn’t simply entertainment in a vacuum, our baseball reporter writes.” Read more at New York Times
“Cobb County, Ga., estimates that Major League Baseball's (MLB) decision to remove the All-Star Game from Atlanta will cost the tourism industry in the area $100 million.” Read more at The Hill
“Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) fiercely defended his state's new voting law after the MLB said it was pulling its All-Star Game out of Atlanta, saying the new restrictions were ‘worth’ boycotts and lawsuits against the Peach State.
‘Free and fair elections are the foundation of who we are as a state and a nation. Secure, accessible, fair elections are worth the threats. They are worth the boycotts as well as the lawsuits,’ Kemp said at a press conference Saturday.
‘I want to be clear: I will not be backing down from this fight, and neither are the people who are here with me today,’ he added.
The comments marked Kemp's latest rebuke of MLB over its Friday announcement that the July 13 game would be taken out of Georgia over the law he signed last month.
The new restrictions include limits on ballot drop boxes, shorter periods in which Georgia residents can apply for mail-in ballots and new photo ID requirements for absentee voting.
Democrats have come out swinging against the new law, saying it amounts to voter suppression and pressuring private companies to speak out against it.
MLB went the furthest of any private group, announcing it would pull its annual All-Star Game directly in response to the new measures.” Read more at The Hill
“Former President Trump on Saturday called Republicans and conservatives to boycott sweeping number of companies amid controversy surrounding new voting laws.
In a statement released late Saturday evening, the former president took aim at Democrats for playing ‘dirty’ and boycotting companies that ‘in any way [offend] them.’
‘For years the Radical Left Democrats have played dirty by boycotting products when anything from that company is done or stated in any way that offends them. Now they are going big time with the WOKE CANCEL CULTURE and our sacred elections,’ Trump said in a statement on Saturday released by Save America PAC.
He then called for Republicans to ‘fight back’ alleging that ‘we have more people than they do,’ and urged conservatives to boycott specific companies including Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Citigroup.
‘It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight back— we have more people than they do— by far! Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS and Merck. Don’t go back to their products until they relent. We can play a better game than them,’ he said.
The call comes as companies have publicly condemned Georgia law SB 202 and other voting legislation proposed in other states throughout the U.S.
Many Republicans have supported these efforts after Trump and his allies alleged widespread voter fraud tainted the 2020 election amid the pandemic, when mail-in ballots were widely used. However, these claims have been disputed by federal and state elections officials.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed SB 202 into law last month.” Read more at The Hill
“Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Ted Cruz (Texas) have joined calls to end MLB's antitrust exemption following the its decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
MLB announced the move on Friday, saying it would relocate the game in protest of Georgia’s voting restrictions signed into law last week. The decision has sparked blowback from GOP lawmakers across the country.
GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan (S.C.) said earlier Friday that he had told his staff to start drafting legislation to remove MLB’s decades-old antitrust exemption ‘in light of @MLB's stance to undermine election integrity laws.’” Read more at The Hill
“Ten bystanders who witnessed George Floyd’s death, ranging in age from 9 to 61, took the stand this week in Derek Chauvin’s trial, united by their anger, sadness and guilt.
Together they painted a picture of what transpired at a Minneapolis corner that went beyond the gruesome, widely circulated video of Mr. Floyd crying out that he couldn’t breathe as Mr. Chauvin knelt on his neck. The often tearful testimony highlighted the trauma of May 25, 2020, and the burden of witnessing a violent, slow-motion death.
‘The more that the knee was on his neck and shimmies were going on, the more you saw Floyd fade away,’ Donald Williams, a 33-year-old mixed martial arts fighter who works as a security guard, testified.
The trial will resume on Monday. Catch up on key takeaways so far.” Read more at New York Times
“An Asian-owned convenience store in Charlotte, North Carolina, was trashed by a man who wielded a metal post and yelled racial slurs, according to police and a son of the store’s owners.
Surveillance footage shows a man pulling a merchandise rack to the floor and swinging a street sign post into the glass of the refrigerators. A man who appears to a friend of the attacker cheers him on.
The attack occurred Tuesday at a store called Plaza Sundries that is downtown near Charlotte’s main transit hub. And it falls in the wake of an attack on a woman of Asian descent in New York City and the fatal shooting of eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses. Six of those victims were women of Asian descent.” Read more at USA Today
“Last week, in an unusually combative tweet response to a congressman, Amazon insisted that its workers did not urinate in bottles.
‘If that were true, nobody would work for us,’ wrote the e-commerce giant, which employs more than 1 million people worldwide. Disbelief, derision and fact-checking ensued as journalists weighed in with reported memos and contractor policiessuggesting otherwise: ‘Documents show Amazon is aware drivers pee in bottles and even defecate en route,’ the Intercept reported, citing workers who described intense pressure to hit their quotas.
Now Amazon says it was wrong.
‘[We] know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed,’ the retail giant wrote in a Friday blog post, apologizing to Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) for its ‘incorrect’ response to him.” Read more at Washington Post
“Rep. Matt Gaetz's communication director resigned abruptly Friday amid a storm of controversies that have hit the Florida Republican, including news of a federal investigation into an alleged sexual relationship with a teenage girl and potential violations of sex trafficking laws.
Luke Ball, who has worked for Gaetz since he joined the U.S. House in 2017, resigned as Gaetz's spokesman ‘out of principle,’ a source with direct knowledge of his decision told the Pensacola News Journal, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
Gaetz's office said in a statement later Friday that the congressman and Ball ‘agreed that it would be best to part ways.’
‘We thank him for his time in our office, and we wish him the best moving forward,’ said the statement.” Read more at USA Today
Dan Balilty for The New York Times
“Religious life in Jerusalem is edging back to normal thanks to Israel’s world-leading vaccine rollout.
On Friday, crowds returned to the Old City’s streets, along with one of Christianity’s most solemn commemorations — the Good Friday procession, above, as Christians made their way down the Via Dolorosa, along which they believe Jesus hauled the cross on which he was crucified.
Elsewhere, Easter still looks very different. In New York, churches are hoping increased attendance for services will bring back the donations whose absence has led to financial hardship during the pandemic.
And in Europe, Brexit has ruined Easter for Britain’s fine chocolate makers, turning exports to Europe into a logistical nightmare.” Read more at New York Times
“We have all hit a wall.
Do you often ask yourself, what time is it? What day is it? Why am I standing in front of the refrigerator staring at an old clove of garlic? You’re not alone. A year of uncertainty and loss has left many people in kind of a fog.
One expert said that state could lead to anhedonia, or the loss of the ability to take pleasure in activities. Another said the pandemic’s longevity had contributed to the sense that time is moving differently and had dulled our ability to form meaningful new memories. Resilience seems in short supply.
Nearly 700 people responded to a Times question about work burnout. Maybe some of your fellow readers’ feelings will ring true for you.” Read more at New York Times
Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
“Gonzaga, the undefeated top seed in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament, will face Baylor for the championship on Monday night.
Jalen Suggs hit a 40-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Gonzaga a 93-90 overtime victory over U.C.L.A. Baylor was hardly challenged in the other semifinal, overwhelming Houston, 78-59.
But first, the women’s championship game. Arizona, the disruptive and defensive-minded newcomer, ousted Connecticut, the most decorated program in women’s college basketball, on Friday night to advance to the finals. The Wildcats will play Stanford, the tournament’s top seed over all. Tipoff is tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.” Read more at New York Times
Elsa/Getty Images
Greatest NCAA Tournament game ever? The 7 best moments from Gonzaga's buzzer-beating win vs. UCLA
“DMX remains at a hospital in White Plains, New York, where he was rushed late Friday night after suffering a heart attack.
The rapper's longtime New York-based lawyer Murray Richman told The Associated Press on Saturday evening that the 50-year-old hip-hop star was on life support but did not say if DMX had suffered a drug overdose, as multiple outlets reported.” Read more at USA Today
“Paul Simon has sold his entire songwriting catalog — including classics like ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ ‘The Sound of Silence’ and ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ — to Sony Music Publishing, in the latest blockbuster transaction in the music publishing business.” Read more at New York Times